I’ve been working my way through my giant stack of older Alterna Comics releases, which now brings me to Croak.

I’m not a fan of the title, as it doesn’t tell me much about what this is. From the cover of the first issue, I can gather that this is probably a horror story, as it shows a small group of people walking into the dark woods and Croak sounds like a horror title.

The story is very simple: young people go into the woods and something starts killing them.

Once the shit hits the fan, towards the end of the first issue, things move really damn fast. The monsters here pick everyone off. The girl in the group gets away and runs for her life but she essentially ends up in a very bad place. And that’s about it.

We then meet two new hikers that come across a video camera in the woods that captured some footage of the monsters.

The story didn’t grab me and it really needed to be fleshed out more. One could argue that this was just three issues but other Alterna Comics releases have done a lot more with the same amount of space. Go West told a solid story in three issues, for instance.

I really loved the art in this book though. Francesco Iaquinta did a great job with his pencil work and Chris O’Halloran worked some real magic with his coloring.

Croak isn’t my favorite Alterna book but it was a decent, quick read with solid art. Plus, I thought the monsters were cool.

Rating: 6.25/10Pairs well with: Other Alterna horror or adult releases like Sonitus, The Wicked Righteous and The XII.